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It’s clear that every day contains
lessons learned.
On Sunday evening, at 9:00, we weighed
anchor from San Miguel in Cozumel, headed just about due
south for Bahia del Espiritu Santo some 86 nautical miles
down the coast. The first three hours we were in the lee of
Cozumel, had light winds, and gentle swell from the south
southeast, and we said to ourselves, hey – this won’t be too
bad. Had some tunes on the I-pod, homemade oatmeal cookies,
a pot of French Roast sitting in the thermos in the sink,
and everything secured for sea. The swells, though 4 to 6
feet, were long and slow enough for us to actually enjoy
them.
Then we discovered that the boat can
take way more than either the autopilot or the crew.
About half an hour south of the tip of
Cozumel, we were in the deep blue of the ocean, and the
winds steadily increased to between 18 and 25 miles per
hour, and the size of the swell began to overwhelm the
autopilot. By about 2:45 a.m., with Jan on watch and Ole
trying to catch some rest down below, the autopilot screamed
that it had had enough, what with trying to maintain 6.5
knots while fighting off a steady east wind, a strong north
setting current, swells increasing to 8-10 feet, and an
annoying wind chop on top.
When the autopilot started screaming,
Jan had had enough, and luckily Ole decided that a screaming
autopilot and nervous wife warranted some adjustment. We
dropped speed to about 5.5 knots, and Ole began what ended
up to be about 6 hours of hand steering in increasingly
turbulent conditions. The hard part was that we couldn’t
see the big ones approaching, and once in awhile caught some
big swells on the port bow that caused some great sliding
and rolling. As we watched the miles and the clock
gradually ticking down, we took comfort in the fact that we
would be entering the reef at Bahia del Espiritu Santo some
time around 9:00 in the morning.
So there we were…and this is no
poop…looking at the lighthouse on the south end of the
entrance to Bahia del Espiritu Santo, the British
Admiralty chart of the area (latest datum 1999), the
Raymarine chart plotter (new), and Captain Freya Raucher's Cruising
Guide to Belize and Mexico’s Caribbean Coast (1986)
… and all three of them said something different about
where the entrance to the reef was!
Captain Trevor had told us about
“eyeball navigation” which was great in theory. In the
heavy chop it was difficult eyeball exactly where the reef
began and ended, and where the safe passage lay.
Confronted with three disparate views
about where we were supposed to enter the reef without
becoming kindling, we had to cruise back and forth for about
an hour, perform some calculations on the paper chart,
express our separate viewpoints, read the Cruising Guide
over and over, and make a decision. A cruiser we had met at
el Milagro in Isla Mujeres who had just returned from this
area told us that the positions listed in the Cruising
Guide were “right on,” so we decided to trust them, even
though the chart plotter and the paper chart showed us that
her waypoint was smack on the reef.
So, clenching our sphincters firmly, we
steered toward a point that the chart plotter and the chart
told us were on the reef, but in actuality was the safe
opening that Captain Raucher had documented, and Jeff from
el Milagro had told us.
Lesson learned: Charts and
plotters are called AIDS to navigation.—they
are not God’s law. Local knowledge is called local
knowledge for a reason. Trust local knowledge --
recent local knowledge.
About a mile inside the reef, we sat
for a few minutes and realized we had not made a decision
about where we were going to anchor. So we cruised south
toward the lighthouse (as the sun moved steadily south,
creating glare on the water and making the dark shapes hard
to read – were they grass? Coral? Shadow from the
clouds?). When the depth sounder registered 4.2 feet in an
area charted as 10 feet, we turned around and cruised back
toward the north side of the bay, hoping for deeper and
calmer water.
Finally, about 11:00 a.m., realizing we
were not going to find a flat, calm place to anchor in
20-knot winds, we picked a spot between the reef and a
beach, in about 9 feet of water – put out 75 feet of chain,
cracked open a cold Miller, and went to bed. 14 hours of
overnight cruising in less than ideal conditions, plus the
need to make a gut decision in unfamiliar waters made for
more stress than any of our previous cruises have produced.
Lessons learned:
- Any anchorage that lies in enough
water with enough chain and doesn’t lie in 8-10 foot
swells is a great anchorage when you’re exhausted.
- The first cold beer after a night
passage like that one is the best beer you’ve ever tasted.
- It is good to nap.
After the nap, we treated ourselves to
a swim and some naked pina coladas on the aft deck as the
sun went down, a simple dinner, and an unheard-of bedtime of
9:00 pm.
Now for a report on the 4-legged crew:
Barclay is amazing. She insisted on
staying in the pilothouse with us without complaint
throughout the crossing, and when I wouldn’t let her out the
salon door for the “outside” water dish, she decided to
sneak out the pilothouse doors and drink from it anyway
instead of from the “inside” dish in the galley. As she
stuck her head out the door, the wind flattened her ears
against her head, she hunkered down, and shouldered her way
down the side deck before we even registered that she had
done it, and was back a few minutes later, taking up
her usual cruising position at the base of the fly bridge
steps
Maggie has earned many points on this
crossing toward her Junior Sea Scout badge. There was only
one barfing incident, she thoughtfully aimed it at her own
scratching pad, then stayed the night under the aft wicker
chair in the salon instead of down below as usual. As soon
as the engines were cut, she demanded breakfast, then sacked
out on the back deck for a nap, even though the boat was
moving at this anchorage more than during any of our past
cruises.
Lesson Learned: The cats are
fine, and can stubbornly take care of their own needs pretty
damn well.
Now comes the interesting part.
Tomorrow evening we have to intentionally head
out of here and do this again for another 66 miles in order
enter Xcalac, our official “exit port” from Mexico, so that
we can officially enter Belize in San Pedro on Thursday
morning and get tied up in Belize City by Friday.
Lesson Learned:
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Do not, if you can help it, commit to
a schedule if you are going to do this.
-
If you must go out in seas beyond
your present comfort zone because you have been stupid
enough to commit to a schedule, stock up on brown shorts.
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